Death by Blunt Instrument
by amitai
Summary: Some are born cold, others achieve coldness, and some have coldness thrust upon them. But which one is Alan Blunt? ON HIATUS


So... here is my attempt at a backstory for Alan Blunt. Enjoy, folks!

DISCLAIMER: I don't need the fame and money that comes with actually publishing these things.

No, really.

Sorry, folks. Not mine. There'd be so much more angst - and Wolf - in them if they were.

Oh, and apologies for any OOC-ness.

* * *

Alan Blunt, expert-but-mourning MI6 operative, sat in a bar somewhere in North London, and drank. Heavily. He didn't know what he was drinking, he barely knew where he was drinking, and occasionally he even forgot why he was drinking, but those blissful moments failed to last long, and he was left reaching for another of whatever it was, grimacing at the taste, hoping that this one would trigger another of the wonderful mind-blanks. All too often, it didn't.

He had no money on him, or he didn't think he did, but he was too drunk to remember or check… so, no way of paying his bill that he cared to think about, no friend with him, and no one he could ring to bail him out – not anymore – but, for the moment, so long as he was drinking and could stay drunk, his bill didn't seem to matter.

Blunt sloshed another shot of his poison-of-the-moment – vodka? Whiskey? Gin? Something strong and alcoholic; it didn't matter what – into his glass and knocked it back. It took a worryingly long time for him to realise that he hadn't actually drunk anything, and he looked at the bottle in mild indignation. How dare it finish? How dare it abandon him as well?

He thought about it for a few seconds, then gazed around himself, rather dazedly, finally spotting the bartender, and gesturing expansively at him. When the man came over, he slurred, persuasively "Getsh anower…"

"Wha'?" the man glared at him.

He gestured with the bottle. "Getsh anower…"

"Pay first this time." The man said, harshly, taking the empty bottle from him, and slamming it down on the bar. Blunt made an ineffectual grab at it, and nearly over-balanced, despite being sat down. Gripping the bar for balance – the world suddenly seemed worryingly unstable – he stared at the barkeep with pleading eyes, and said, unsteadily,

"Sh'mine."

"You what?"

"Sh'mine. My… bo''le."

"You want the… oh fine, here, have it." The bartender slammed the bottle down next to him, and Blunt grabbed it, peering at it suspiciously in case some dregs were hiding at the bottom. Finally convinced that it was, indeed, empty, he looked the man up and down consideringly.

"You… you _su-ure _you don' wan give me nuvver?" he asked, slowly.

The man – he did have a nametag, but it appeared to say something like Aracataca, but that was a city in Colombia (or was it Argentina? Or Mexico? Or Venezuela? Or was Venezuela a city as well? Were they all cities?) so he was pretty certain that wasn't really his name. And even if it was, he wouldn't be able to pronounce it, so he was going to steer clear of mentioning names at the moment – looked at him. "Yeah." He said, shortly, "I'm sure. Reckon you've had enough, anyway."

Blunt tried to shrug, but the bartender never saw it anyway, since he'd turned away to deal with another customer.

A gentle tap on his shoulder sent him spinning round, and off his chair; a pair of decidedly-ungentle hands hauled him back onto it. When he was firmly on his chair, he came face to rather-blurry-face with his partner.

"No' now." He moaned. "Can' you peo'le leaf me 'lone f'r even a few hoursh?"

"Alan." Tulip Shaw said, firmly. "You need to go home."

"Don' wan' to. Sh'empty."

"Yes." She nodded, and for a second or two he thought she might say that she was sorry for his loss. If she had, he knew that he would have hit her, for the first time in their five year long partnership. But she just said, quietly, "I know it is. But you've got to go home; home, or somewhere else. You can always sell the house, if you want to get rid of the memories."

"I wan' the mem'ries." He drawled, drunkenly, fighting against the urge to cry, because, dammit, he'd let himself go this far, but he knew what blows his self-respect could take, and it might take crying on Tulip's shoulder, but it wouldn't stand under the weight of having cried on Tulip's shoulder in public. "I… I jusht can' live wi' them a' the moment… don' know how t'… how t' do i'…"

"You can stay at my place. For tonight, at least." She said, very gently.

He was done fighting. He'd taken so much in the last few days, and he couldn't deal with anymore. At the moment, he'd take any kindness offered, and wait – at least a little while – to bite the hand which gave it to him. Slowly, awkwardly, he nodded.

"Thanksh."

"How much do you owe?"

"Ashk him." He tried to gesture at the bartender, who noticed his flailing, and came over.

"How much?" Tulip asked, her voice suddenly cold with efficiency. Really, it was hardly surprising she never kept her boyfriends. She treated all her dealings with them like business transactions anyway. Hell, maybe they were, it wasn't like Alan could ask.

"Twenty five pounds."

Tulip handed it over without a blink. "Thank you." She nodded at him, and heaved Alan up, helping him – rather forcibly – to stagger out of the bar.

* * *

He woke the next morning feeling like death warmed over, ironically enough; but it took him only a few seconds to remember last night. Sitting up, and pointedly ignoring the pain as his head protested, rather violently, he looked around the room.

His partner's spare bedroom boasted enough room to swing a cat, but only if you were intent on killing the poor animal; and not only was it tiny, it was also feminine. White, compact and quite sickeningly modern, he noted, as he forced himself to get up. Grabbing the – woman's – dressing gown, and wrapping himself in it, he made his way into the kitchen.

Blunt supposed he could have foregone the dressing gown, but he was rather intent on preserving some distance between himself and Tulip; out of necessity, they lived practically in each other's pockets, but he'd never subscribed to the idea that sleeping with your partner made you closer. In fact, in his experience, it caused difficulties. Besides, he'd married only a couple of years after he met Tulip, so he wasn't exactly available.

Unfortunately, although appearing in your colleague's kitchen wearing bathrobe may well preserve distance, appearing in your colleague's kitchen wearing a _lady's_ bathrobe does little to preserve dignity.

Tulip was the soul of discretion, and her lips barely twitched as she turned to look at him; but he knew his partner well enough that an almost-invisible twitch of the lips was as good as shrieking hysterical laughter from anyone else. On the other hand, he was feeling too raw in body and soul to be anything other than grateful for the restraint.

"Paracetomol?" she offered, quietly.

"Thank you." He took the packet, and sat down, popping two out and swallowing them dry.

For a few minutes, neither of them said anything, until Tulip sat down opposite him with a cup of tea and said, quietly,

"How was the funeral?"

Alan blinked at her, then looked down at his hands. He didn't answer for nearly a minute, then he said, very softly, "Oh, you know. Like a funeral. Depressing. People dressed in black, weeping relatives. Over-sympathetic young priests who have no idea what they're talking about. All that fun stuff."

"Alan…"

"Tulip." He said, firmly. "I'm not – what was the phrase the psychiatrist used? _Internalizing_ all this, I'm just dealing with it my own way."

"Alan, internalizing things is the way you deal with them." She said, softly.

"I don't." he said, taken aback. "I just… I don't talk to people about them."

"And that's not internalizing it?"

"No one wants to know about my problems." He paused. "No, actually, Debbie…" he swallowed a lump in his throat. "Debbie always wanted to know, but – well, you know. The job. There's only so much you can tell people about it. Even…" he swallowed again, but the lump wouldn't go, and he ended up talking in a hoarse whisper. "Even your wife."

"I wish I'd met her." Tulip said, casually. "She sounds like she was good for you."

Alan knew her well enough not to take offence – and he understood their relationship well enough to know that she was trying to say how sorry she was that it had happened. Neither of them even said anything like that. They just didn't. It wasn't their style.

"It would be easier if I could get revenge." He said, a little more clearly. "But, against whom?"

"Why, who killed them?" Tulip asked, and Alan remembered that he'd barely spoken to her since he heard the news. They'd returned from Basra after his emotional disintegration on hearing the news, been de-briefed, and he'd spent the next few days – was it really two weeks? – arranging the funeral, going to the funeral, and trying to forget the funeral.

"No one." He said, and he couldn't help it that a little bitterness seeped into his voice. "No one at all. There was a gas explosion – a real one, the service checked for me. No bombs, no tampering, nothing… just a common-or-garden tragedy. I mean, I can't exactly murder the whole of British Gas, can I?"

"No." she agreed, the one word sounding like a pebble hitting linoleum; no bounce to it at all. "You can't. Alan, I know…"

"What?" he snapped, dreading the 'I know how you must be feeling' speech he was certain was coming.

"I know you're going to want to do something – take your mind off it all – but, er…Haldwick's taken you off the active roster."

He stared at her. "He… he can't have." He croaked.

"I'm sorry, Alan." She said, not looking at him. "He just doesn't think – after our last assignment – he doesn't think it's a good idea. Not while you're so – emotionally unstable."

"Tulip, my wife and child just died!" he said, loudly, as near as his rigid self-control ever let him get to shouting. "When is Haldwick going to say I'm emotionally stable enough to go on a mission? Has he given me a set time frame? A timetable, maybe – all the things I should do? Does he really think that I'm ever going to get over this?" he paused, took a deep breath, and continued, more quietly, "I'm dealing with it. The best thing I could do is take my mind off it. If I take my mind off it enough times, maybe it will cease to be on my mind at all."

"Well, Haldwick thinks that it could be dangerous. That _you _could be dangerous; at the moment, anyway." She said, primly. "I'm sure he'll get the psychologists to check you over before long. They'll clear you."

"I don't want them poking around inside my head." He said, stiffly. "Not with memories of Debbie. And especially not memories of," it took actual willpower to mention his son's name. "Mark. That's – it's private. They don't make me unstable."

"The memories don't do anything." Tulip agreed. "It's the fact that they are memories which is the problem, Alan. You know how badly the last mission went, don't you?" he glared at her. "What if we do that again, because you're not dealing well with this? When is it going to stop? I can't deal with an assignment and carry a partner, Alan, and if you won't accept this for your sake, do it for mine. Please."

He sighed. "Alright. How long am I off for?"

"Two weeks."

He didn't look at her. "What am I to do till then?"

She looked at him – he could feel her dark, inscrutable eyes fixed on the top of his head. "We can catch up on all the paper work we haven't had a chance to do yet."

He didn't say anything. He'd only hated paperwork because it meant his off-assignment time was spent away from Debbie and Mark, which had felt wrong. Now, it was no longer a problem, so he swallowed, nodded, and stood up.

"May I make myself a tea?" he asked, blandly.

"Of course." She nodded, standing herself. "You know where everything is. I'm going to go and get dressed; Haldwick is going to want to tell you the news himself today. I just told you to give you a heads up. I know how you hate being surprised."

"Surprises are fine, in their proper place." He muttered, as she left the room, knowing that she wouldn't hear him. "There just aren't any places for them."

* * *

Haldwick was a tubby, balding, sweating man of an overly nervous disposition for the job he held, but with a ruthless objectivity that allowed nerves to take a back seat during any decisions he had to make. Hence, no "molly-coddling" for Alan. Sat opposite the stuttering little man, Alan felt his lip curling in disdain at his nerves and his heartlessness. This man wouldn't feel raw and angry and hurt if his family were murdered – if he even had a family. Even as he disdained the heartlessness of the man, he wished, silently, that he could be like that to some degree, to save himself the pain he was going through at that moment.

"B-Blunt. So sorry to hear about the – incident." He'd said when they'd entered the room, and only his partner's bruising grip on his elbow had stopped him from saying something he knew that he'd regret. 'Incident'. The 'incident' that was the death of his wife and child – yes, this man had obviously been taking lessons in tactlessness.

"Thank you, sir." He had ground out, looking over the man's shoulder to the window, watching the late-rush-hour traffic which crawled past, jammed from street-corner to street-corner.

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to come to the funeral."

"I'm glad you weren't there. Sir." He'd said, mock-politely. "It was very quiet. Friends. Family. No work friends at all. Deb… my wife never knew any of them. And my son…" was too young to have friends who could come to his funeral. Was too young to have anyone there he really remembered, except his broken, often-absent father. "…Was too young to really know any of his parents friends."

"Quite." Haldwick looked at him, carefully, and Alan felt a rush of disdain. Could he look so coldly at someone grieving? At someone who'd just lost all the family he'd ever really known and loved? Could he look at them that coldly, and then exploit them? He was sure he would never be able to. "Look, B-Blunt, I've got a rather tricky situation for you and Shaw, here." He jerked his head at Tulip. He never actually addressed Tulip in anything other than a rather vague 'you two'. He seemed a little embarrassed that one of the really good agents was a woman. "You're going to need at least a week to prep on it," he pressed a button on his desk with a shaking hand, and ignored the secretary who entered and handed the two agents beige manila files, "And I want you re-evaluated, psychologically, Blunt. You'll have a crash training course, so you can get back on form, both of you," But his eyes were still on Alan, "Then you'll be flown out again. You should be back in a couple of weeks."

They were dismissed, and knew it. Without a word, they filed out, then went separate ways – their offices were nowhere near each other – without a word.

Alan bumped into someone as he headed towards his office, and looked up from the file he was rather half-heartedly reading.

"Ian." He said, quietly. They'd been recruited together at Cambridge, then trained together, and had been partnered together very, very briefly. Ian was good, one of the best, but his was a rather heavy-handed touch. He was the battering ram to Alan's feather-duster, and, as a partnership, they'd been disastrous; they still met up, occasionally, but rarely at work time. Which meant that Ian had sought him out. Which meant condolences were coming.

"Alan. I'm – I'm so sorry. I…" he swallowed, and said, resolutely, "I can't imagine losing my nephew. Not now, anyway"

Ah, yes, of course. Ian did have an idea what he was going through, having lost a brother and a sister-in-law not many years back.

"Oh, of course." He forced out, almost grateful for the distraction the boy would give him. "How is…" he fished about for the name. "Alec?"

"Alex is fine."

"He'd be about six now."

"That's right." Ian nodded. "Tulip helped J-John," after five years, it was still difficult to talk about his brother easily, Alan realised, heavily, which didn't bode well for his chances of getting over Debbie. "To get away from Scorpia, and you two were paired up shortly after John di… after Alex came to live with me."

"And he's doing well?"

"Yes. Mark was about three, am I right?"

"Four." He corrected, absently, one hand going to the door-knob, desperate for the awkward conversation to be over. "Four years, five months and three weeks. And a couple of days."

"Oh. Right. Well, I'm really sorry. If – if there's anything I can do for you…"

"You can't really go out and get hammered when you've got a six year old at home to look after." Alan said, a little harshly.

"He keeps trying to call me 'Dad'." Ian confided, looking a little uneasy. "I hate 'uncle', so he can't call me that, but he can't understand why he calls me 'Ian'. I've tried explaining, but he's a little young at the moment to really get it."

"Yes, of course." He said, quietly. "Look, Ian, I've got work to do, I'm sorry…"

Ian nodded, quickly. "Oh, yes, of course. I'm sorry. Well – if you need anything…"

"Yes." He nodded, went into his office, and shut the door without another word.

* * *

So... what d'you think? Please tell me!!

Lol, ami. xxx


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